


Kings

by rnagnumdong



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2510096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rnagnumdong/pseuds/rnagnumdong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody ever said that leadership was easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings

**Author's Note:**

> look at that terrible title + summary. wow. rly got ur attention.

Kiereo awoke at exactly nine in the morning every day. It was a great time to wake up. Late enough to where he got enough sleep, early enough to where the servants wouldn’t worry. It worked, most of the time. If he didn’t get up on his own, someone else would. That someone else was usually Saffron, because a lot of the other servants didn’t like the idea of waking him up in the morning. He could understand why. He was a kind king, but that didn’t mean anyone knew what kind of person he would be in the morning.

Today was one of those days where Saffron woke him up. Saffron was basically the leader of the servants, which might have worried Kiereo if he didn’t trust him so much. Saffron was an older man, probably in his forties if anyone had to guess, which of course they did, because it was only a new trend to keep up with your age, so pretty much anyone above twenty five didn’t know anymore. Perhaps they would remember, if they set their mind to it, but if they didn’t it wouldn’t matter anyway. Keeping up with age was a personal thing. Regardless, he had white robes that showed off his librarian status. That was mainly why the servant and Kiereo where what you might call “close” – books. It was a common interest that made life easier for both parties.

“Your Highness, it’s time to arise.” The warning was followed by a groan, and then a slightly annoyed sigh. “You shouldn’t have stayed up that late last night.”

Kiereo physically rolled out of the bed, trying to escape from the nagging. Instead of escaping, he just fell in the floor with a painful thud. “But the paperwork needed finished! If I didn’t do it then the trade declaration from Ulmea wouldn’t be sent out as soon, which means that it would have arrived there at least a week after it was sent. And who knows how they would react to that, you know how the Ulmians are, they’ll do anything to get what they want, and Queen Tamsin is never straight forward about anything. Next thing you know, we would have their troops at our doors, setting fire to the forest, whatever! Or worse, they could have cut off all trading with us, which would have just been tragic. You know how the citizens like their cocoa.”

The rant was followed by a soft chuckle from the librarian. “Well, I suppose it’s good you did it last night then. Waiting even another night, that would have certainly gotten the queen throwing herself into warfare.”

The king stood, having taken the rant to wake himself up physically, which mainly meant sitting up and running his hand through his hair a lot. “Go do whatever you guys do for a while, I need a moment without you encouraging me,” he ordered, though it was too groggy to have any sort of edge to it. The servant complied without a word, leaving Kiereo to nearly trip over his blankets before throwing them back onto the bed. At least that put him at high alert, letting a few curses slip.

He entered the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. It might have seemed like a self-absorbed thing to do to others, but for him it was mainly a reminder that he was an actual thing that existed. He looked at himself for probably a minute, which seemed far too much to him. Forced himself to focus on his face today so he didn’t pay attention to the other things. Mainly that his undercut was growing out a little, so that some of the middle part hung in his eyes. He would have to remember to get it cut. Hopefully dyed, if he had time, but he didn’t usually have time. Hadn’t had time since he became the king. It was white. First time he’d seen it white for longer than a few days since he was probably twelve. That needed to be fixed, for sure. Looked too much like someone he would rather not look like, with his red eyes and pale skin and white hair.

He turned away from the mirror before he could think much about who he looked like. Focused on the task of putting his clothes on for the day. He put on the hideous orange jumpsuit. It was an outfit he’d picked up from when he’d been in Ikepia, a kingdom not far from his. There, it was an outfit worn by prisoners. Here the outfit didn’t have the same conations, it was just ugly, but it made him laugh. A king, in prisoner clothes. He threw on the black belt and the gray boots, then the golden crown as almost an afterthought.

He exited his room, entering the enchantment room. When he’d chosen the place for his room, being connected to the enchantment room had seemed nice. He’d always liked being close to books, plus he spent a lot of time in the enchantment room anyways. Now, it didn’t seem worth it, and he was just farther from the kitchen. He walked past the books and the glowing runic letters, smiling lazily at a servant (Verdin, was that their name?) that was dusted off the bookshelves. Kiereo prided himself on knowing most of his people’s names, but he didn’t know all of them. If that was because there was simply too many, or because of personal fault, he didn’t know.

He entered the dining room and just took the toast off the plate, not bothering to sit down. It was rare that he actually sat down and ate breakfast. The only time he did that was when there was a big breakfast because of special occasions, with stuff like eggs and bacon and pancakes. But that was a luxury he didn’t have often, because that was a lot of time and money to spend on eating that he could be spending on something else. Like giving building permits and setting up trades.

Kiereo headed on his way to the second floor of the castle, where his office was. The office was shared between him and Melell, though. Melell being an old friend of Kiereo’s and the other king of Irzea. They weren’t married; it was just a joint leadership. The practice was becoming a lot more common lately since people started to speak out against arranged marriages, but it was universally agreed that being the leader was too much for one person. Something halted Kiereo in his tracks though: the door was locked.

You see, the two have this morning routine. Melell has a lot of trouble sleeping and wakes up at ungodly hours of the night, so he just gets his paperwork done then. It can generally be done without Kiereo’s consent, since he’d taken over most of the military duties and honestly while it was still better to give building permits out then just let the citizens build all willy-nilly, neither of them cared what was being built where. Besides for a few select spots they had plans for themselves or particularly liked, but those kinds of things where told to each other immediately. So when Kiereo woke up, Melell was usually in the office. If he wasn’t, he left the door unlocked for his fellow king, because it was at most a ten minute window between Melell leaving and Kiereo waking. They’d gotten in such a habit of doing this that Kiereo wasn’t even sure where he kept his office key.

“So, it’s one of those days,” Kiereo muttered under his breath, turning around and going back down the stairs. Before, he’d had a slight rush to him, but now he had the groggy turtle-like speed that fit the look on his face. He didn’t bother to finish his toast, got about half way through it and then regretted even starting on it. He recalled the last time this had happened, about three months ago now. It was the longest it had went with the two living together without it happening. It was worse when Kiereo first accepted the joint leadership, happening at least once a week. But that was three years ago now, and things had gotten better.

Of course, Kiereo never expected it to end. He didn’t think it would ever end, but especially not at this point in their lives. He wished it would, wished he could fix it somehow. But it wasn’t going to be fixed. This was not a problem that could just be solved with a snap of a finger.

Kiereo exited the castle, shouldering his way through the several doorways. He scanned the area, but he knew what he was going to find. The sounds of sword against bone, flesh, whatever it could reach could be heard from even here. He frowned, edging to the side of the cliff face and jumping down it. It was only a small drop, and if he was careful, it only take one or two more small drops like that to get down to the doorway. He always took this way, instead of the stairs, so he’d learned the best way down. His feet hurt a little, but he would prefer it to taking the stairs, which were long and extravagant and didn’t even put you close to the door of the lapis room, even when you climbed down the endless stairs you would have to swim across a river and then climb a little bit back up the mountain. He supposed it was worth it to some people, but not to him. It wasn’t his fault the door was put on the wrong side of the building.

He landed somewhat gracefully in front of the door, dusting himself off a bit even though he wasn’t dirty. He walked in the building, closing the door behind him. The building was made entirely of lapis, besides for some iron bars that were used where one would normally place windows. It was originally going to be made of diamond, but they learned very quickly that it was far too expensive. And there was the chance some thief was going to try to mine the building itself.

The part of the building he’d walked into was just a wide hallway, littered with chests full of different armor and weapons. It broke off into five different rooms, each with a sign above it stating a monster type, specifically zombies, skeletons, spiders, cave spiders, and blazes. The building was essentially a training hall, with spawners in every room that they’d managed to get through their mining corporation. He could hear most of the sounds of a battle coming from the skeleton room. He knocked on the door before entering, not waiting for an answer. It was less of a request for entrance and more of a warning of entrance, like what parents do a lot. Except he wasn’t Melell’s parent, he was just letting the other know that someone was entering the room and not coming from the skeleton spawner. He’d made that mistake before, and that was an experience he did not want to relive.

Melell reacted by turning off the spawner immediately with a torch, and killing the only skeleton in the room. It was quiet easy for him, always being the better at physical fighting of the duo. Certainly better than just his fellow king. Good enough to take down the last one and temporarily cripple an elite set of guards. He looked the part of a deadly killer, too. Shaggy black hair, a bit of stubble, olive complexion. Nearly black eyes that seemed like they looked right through you. He dressed in all black to keep that image going, a long sleeved black jacket with a hood that he always kept closed, black pants that weren’t baggy or tight, and black boots that had taken a silly amount of leather and wool to make. Kiereo knew they’d taken a silly amount of resources, because before that, the other man had gone shoeless.

“What is it?” Melell asked, putting the sword in the sheath hung over his back. Kiereo was admittedly a bit surprised it was just a normal iron sword, since Melell had taken a liking to switching around his weapons at every opportunity, even the ones that weren’t that great of a weapon. Who fought with a scythe anyway?

“You’re well aware what it is. I thought I told you that if it happened again, you could talk to me,” Kiereo replied, fiddling with his pockets awkwardly. He hated when they had these conversations. It always ended up the same. Besides, he was never that good with these things anyway. The only reason he delved into them was because it was better than Melell continuing all day or a servant talking to him.

“And I told you that I didn’t need your help,” Melell countered with a harshness to his tone that wasn’t there before.

“Oh? You don’t need my help? I suppose I’ll take the next ship out of here, then.” The statement might have been harmful, but his voice was too concerned for it to hit hard at all. “It doesn’t really matter. I was there, too, you know? I mean, not for all of it, so I’m not going to act like I entirely understand, but overworking yourself and killing monsters isn’t going to help anything.”

“I needed more arrows. And we’re not going to be negatively affected by bones, that’s for sure.”

“Yea, but that’s a ridiculous amount of arrows you’re carrying there,” Kiereo pointed out, gesturing to the overfilling backpack. “Are you supplying the whole army?”

“Actually, yes. You see, we, as the kings, have to supply the army and the servants with basic supplies, be it by ourselves or through a business or trade. This is how the government works with government based operations,” came the snarky reply.

“Well, yea, but getting one of the servants to come down here and do that for you wouldn’t be too hard. It’s what their getting paid to do, anyway.”

“Which is silly. Why are we wasting our money, paying servants? They’re not even servants, they’re just working for us. That’s not a servant. It’s embarrassing.”

“Maybe around certain places, like Irria and Oriasiway and such, but they’re old fashioned. We’re trying to be modern here, because it looks good. And our citizens are becoming increasingly liberal.”

“By the way, we need to take care of that immediately. It’s getting kind of out of hand. The other day, in the town, there was a peaceful protest on one of the streets. I don’t even know what they’re protesting. But they were holding signs and stuff, that’s ridiculous! You would think you were in Upia if you saw it.”

“Upia’s a nice place, good bit of population who are for the most part happy. I don’t understand what you have against them.”

“Because they’re outrageous! Their president might as well not even be there, much less their house thing or whatever they have going on. People pretty much do what they want, but there’s protests all the time. I don’t understand what their problem is.”

“I still think Upia is a good place to vacation to. Even if I have to talk with the president.”

The conversation continued on about somewhat frivolous things, which probably wasn’t the best way to go. Kiereo knew that. He knew that you shouldn’t let things fester up inside you. At the same time, he knew that distractions where also sometimes the more preferred route, especially for Melell. So they talked for hours, about somewhat frivolous things. A waste of time, but better than anything either of them had planned to do that day. Neither of them got to just talk to each other that much anymore, not since they became kings.

“Hey, you know you can just come at me with your problems whenever you want, right?” Kiereo asked a few hours later.

“Yes, yes, I’m aware. I think you just want to listen to me talk more,” Melell replied.

“I’m serious. But don’t project on me.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think i first started writing this like a year ago n i dont think its anything like i wanted it to be in the beginning lmao


End file.
